Day 1 – #CTNSC18

Day 1 – #CTNSC18

It was an exciting day as Team Ontario made our debut on the national stage at the 2018 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships in Vancouver at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre! With a total of 100 Ontario athletes competing this week, it is sure to be action-packed week of competition. By the end of this week – National champions will be crowned, the National Team will be selected and the Four Continents, Junior World, World & Olympic team will be announced!

Day 1 of competition was kicked off by the Novice Pattern Dances. Team Ontario has a total of 8 out of 15 entries in Novice Dance, and they performed the Cha Cha Congelato and the Argentine Tango. Nadiia Bashynska & Peter Beaumont of Ontario are in the lead with 29.50 points and Sophia Strachan & Everest Zhu are close behind with 27.72 points in 4th place. There are only 2.16 points separating 1st & 5th place right now, so tomorrow’s free dance will be the deciding factor in this event, it begins at 8:00am PST.

The Novice Women skated their Short Program next, with 8 Ontario athletes competing out of a field of 18. Daria Carr representing BC/YK is currently in 1st place with 44.49 points while Ontario’s Amelia Orzel sits in 5th place with 41.70 points, meaning that only 2.79 points separates 5th place from 1st place heading into the long program tomorrow. The event will begin at 10:23am PST.

The Novice Men were up next competing their short programs, 4 out of 18 competitors representing Ontario. Alec Guinzbourg from Ontario is the leader after the short with 51.48 points, a 4.26 point lead over Quebec’s Sandrine Bouchard in 2nd place. The Novice Men Free Program begins at 1:16 PST tomorrow afternoon.

Day 1 ended with the Junior Men Short Program, where Ontario athletes made up 7 out of 18 total competitors. There will be 3 Ontario skaters in the final flight of the long program as Corey Circelli sits in 2nd place with 59.64 points, Bruce Waddell is in 3rd with 57.32 points and Matthew Markell in 4th with 54.53 points. Thursday’s long program will come down to the wire as there are only 2.65 points between 3rd and 1st place. The Junior Men Long Program will begin on Thursday at 6:53pm PST.

If you are unable to join us in Vancouver, you can still cheer on your favourite Ontario athletes from home by following the live stream via the Skate Canada website. You can also follow the live scoring online, and view the event schedule by clicking here.

For live #CTNSC18 updates, please be sure to like Skate Ontario on Facebook and follow us on Instagram (@SkateOntario) for picture updates throughout the day. See everyone tomorrow! #TeamOntario